August 04, 2009
Fessin' Up
One thing TV crime dramas have in common is that the bad guy just doesn’t walk into a detective’s office and make a confession. Once he’s caught there’s a certain amount of interrogation, testimony, and verbal arm twisting that goes into getting him to admit his guilt. You’ve got to emphasize with the Holy Spirit. It takes a lot of time and effort to get the ‘good confession’ out of some of us.
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Gail;
-----When you ponder the nature of knowledge it becomes apparent why it is so difficult for people to take up the faith necessary to make that good confession. Conclusion is the hinge that decision turns upon, and conclusion is constructed of faith in facts and information. But this world is awash in a sea of facts and information more vast than any one mind could even begin to examine in a lifetime, let alone compare and interrelate sufficiently to draw any conclusions. So conclusions of others become the facts and information that the overwhelming majority of us use to make decisions. Their general acceptance becomes the basis for their truth, and accepted theory becomes support for new theory until whole structures of “knowledge” tilt away from uprightness worse than the Tower of Pisa.
-----The Book of Daniel is a great example. The 18th century fad of Biblical criticism, based on the theory that all events of this world happen according to observed scientific principle, determined that Daniel could not have written that piece in the 6th century BC, because it so accurately describes the events of the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st centuries BC. “Prophecy is not real because it is not natural” was the proposition they put forth. Critics gleaned for their support such factual tidbits of their time as the lack of mention of Belshazzar in any other known writing except the Bible. Somehow, that was supposed to make Belshazzar non-existent and the Bible a fraud. For decades this conclusion was accepted until it became expected knowledge that Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC. However, in 1854, clay cylinders were unearthed in Ur upon which were inscribed King Nabonidus’ mention of his eldest son, Belshazzar. Whoops! “But he was only a son, he may have been only a child!” became the redeeming cry of the critics. Until a year later cuneiform tablets were unearthed that referred to Belshazzar’s secretaries and household staff. Whoops, again! Finally, other tablets revealing Belshazzar’s co-regency with Nabonidus were found, proving Daniel’s accuracy. Every historian of those last few centuries BC referred to Nabonidus as the final king of Babylon, and no one, historian or not, revealed even a hint of Belshazzar’s existence, accept, of course, the Bible. No 2nd century author would dare to have referred to an unknown name as the last Babylonian king, counter to the historically accepted knowledge that Nabonidus was that last king. Yet in the face of the obvious conclusion - the book was written by Daniel - to this day the world remains convinced that Daniel was written in the 2nd century, because “prophecy doesn’t happen.”
-----And that is only one example of the wash of false conclusions flooding the knowledge of the world in the face of contradicting fact. If knowledge were not based upon general acceptance, but rather upon careful and faithful thought, this world would be right side up instead of upside down. But, no one wants to be seen as gullible, and the more the world is drawn into a slavish acceptance of scientific conclusions drawn from sorted facts (and faithless losses of memory), the more the fear of gullibility sucks folks deeper into the public smoke screen of accepted deception. But thanks be to God, when you take up enough faith to challenge public knowledge, the smoke screen blows back far enough to reveal the silent facts that are the “anomalies” shouting God’s existence and the Bible’s truth. It is hard not to laugh at a whole world full of gullible little toadies, all so petrified of being gullible that they won’t jump. It is funny; it is sad.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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